Even Linkin Park realise they sound dated

The trouble is, that while Linkin Park have noticed that sounding like Linkin Park is about as contemporary as riding a penny farthing, they don't seem to have much idea what to replace it with.

The next album, then, will be fudgey and casting round for something, anything, to try and ease the stench of nu-metal carcass that clings to their fingers:

We're going for the music that inspired us, rather than the nü-metal type of sound," frontman Chester Bennington said of the band's third studio album, due next year. We're ripping that out. It's completely gone."

You might think this would call for self-belief, but it sounds like they're going to go with self-delusion instead:

We've always been known for mixing a lot of different genres of music and not pigeonholing ourselves in one particular sound, but by doing so, we've kind of pigeonholed ourselves into our sound. It sounds strange, but there's a common thread that people are going to expect, and we're trying to pull that out of the new music."

So... are you suggesting, Chester, that you've got so many musical influences going on in your work that you've been straitjacketed in sounding like Linkin Park? Rather than - as musicologists would testify - having taken the line of maximising sales to the baggy-shorted fools who thought Fred Durst was smart?

music linkin park chester bennington